Oddly buoyed by the knowledge, I straightened up in my seat. "What else did you do for my father?"
"Aside from managing the club, keeping his Five Pointers under control when they decide to break their wedding vows, and acting like my little black book was his to comb through whenever he wanted?"
"Yeah, aside from that," I mocked.
She shrugged. "He was the reason I got clean. He was the reason I survived that night—"
"What night?" Declan muttered, but she ignored him.
Her gaze was fixed on me as she rasped, "He was the reason I didn’t slink back into poverty, and he was the reason that I got rich and gained some power in this godforsaken city.
"As I’ve repeatedly said, I’m more than happy for the status quo to continue, Aidan. I have no desire for anything to change."
I studied her. "What did you take?"
"PCP. Your father had a problem with that back in the day. He knew how tough it was to get clean."
"It’s not like him to help people in need," Conor said, his tone cool.
Grainne stood, marking an end to the discussion whether we liked it or not, stating, "Then you don’t know your father as well as you think you do.
"Now, are you going to deal with MacMurray or am I just going to have to leave him restrained in one of my rooms until he sobers up?"
"Lead the way," was all I told her, though her words hit home.
Da had kept a lot of shit from us. Some good, most of it bad. Were we underestimating him? Or were we just desensitized to his games?
None of us spoke as she led us out of a different door than the one we’d entered. The front of the club was one thing, but the backrooms were another.
Technically, this place wasn’t a whorehouse, more of a sex club, but that didn’t mean that it wasn’t the worst kept secret in the neighborhood.
Before my attention was snatched entirely by MacMurray, I fiddled with the app on my phone and set Savvie’s vibrator onto a heavier pulsing beat. Then, tilting my screen so that no one could see, I checked the security cameras—she was still tied to the bed.
Relieved she hadn’t figured out how to dismantle it—I put nothing past my wife—I tucked my phone away and returned my attention to where it should always have been: business.
Grainne led us down a hall and paused outside yet another door. This one was studded with red leather.
"I’ll leave him to you."
As she passed me a small set of keys, I assured her, "I’ll gladly uphold the same deal as the one you had with Da. Silent partner, protection, etc., in exchange for intel.
"We may require more information from you than he asked, especially as it’s the early days of my reign. If Conor finds out you’re screwing us over, all bets are off."
Before she started to drift away, her mouth twisted into a cold smile. "I’ve never been a threat to the O’Donnellys. You’ll learn that in time."
"She’d be the fucking first," Brennan muttered in my ear.
I turned to look at him, agreeing, "She would."
Unsure of what I’d find, I gritted my teeth as I opened the door where it was rammed home just how important it was that Savannah learned to obey me in some things.
Relieved that she was angry and pouting at home because I was tormenting her with a goddamn vibrator and not here to see this, I blew out a breath.
"Jesus Christ," Finn ground out.
I’d seen more blood on a regular day at my ‘job,’ but knowing this came from a drug-crazed MacMurray beating a woman made it so much fucking worse.
Spinning around, I saw Grainne hadn’t left the hall yet so I called out, "Grainne."